


In Fine

by m3aculpa



Series: dark_bingo, round 2 [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Community: dark_bingo, Gen, Sad, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m3aculpa/pseuds/m3aculpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s just another con.</p><p>For the prompt 'hiding an injury/illness'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Fine

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:**  In Fine  
>  **Fandom:** White Collar  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Word count:** 834 words  
>  **Character(s):** Neal Caffrey, Mozzie, June, Elizabeth Burke, Peter Burke, Diana Barrigan, Clinton Jones, Lauren Cruz  
>  **Pairing(s):** None  
>  **Warnings:** Terminal illness  
>  **Prompt:** Hiding injury/illness for [](http://dark-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**dark_bingo**](http://dark-bingo.livejournal.com/).  
>  **Summary:** It’s just another con.  
>  **a/n:** First time in the fandom. Please be gentle with me. I’ve also only watched half season 2, but I’m aware of some things that happened in season 3 and some references might have snuck in.

**In Fine**

Like most things in his life, he treats it like a con. A bright smile and some sleight of hand – making them looking the other way, making them think he’s hiding something else.

In his locked room, in front of the mirror, he watches himself dwindle away. The weight is dropping quickly and his clothes are starting to sag. Mozzie is good with thread and needle and helps him adjust them to fit. He’s the only one that Neal can tell and he hates the strain it’s taken on him. His eyes are haunted and sad. Neal pretends not to notice the way that he looks at him, the way he measures how he’s dwindling away into nothing, the unspoken question, ‘How long?’

  


His smiles are bright and his repertoire witty and clever. He acts as normally as he can and nobody questions the sudden gauntness of his face. Make-up hides the bruising under his eyes. Clothes hide the bruising on his body. He bruises so easily now. They bloom – purple, yellow, green, black, blue – all over his skin. He looks like he’s been in the wars.

  


Doctor’s appointments are woven into his routine and he tells– lies to –Peter that he is courting a nurse. It makes Peter laugh and shake his head. After inquiring whether or not hospital is within his radius – it is, Neal has made sure of that – he leaves the subject alone. Sometimes Neal wonders if he’s really that good. Is he really conning them or are they thankful for the attempt, as it allows them to continue to deny what is happening before their eyes? Diana’s eyes skitter over his prominent cheekbones. Jones ignores when his sleeve rides up and shows a particularly ugly bruise. Peter ignores the panting and fighting for breath after a brief chase.

  


June finds his medicines. He finds her sitting on his couch, staring at the pill bottles, and her face is disbelieving. For a moment he just stares, before crossing over to the couch. She rises unsteadily and her hands tremble when she touches his face, to see if he’s really there, that he’s not gone. Not yet. The realisation that he’ll be gone is a horror-struck clarity in her eyes. She cries and it’s ugly. Everything in his life that this disease touches is ugly.

  


It snowballs out of his control after that. Soon the con has been revealed and everybody is going out of their way to help him. Diana brings him to art shows. Jones jokes and pretends not to notice when he gets winded. Peter invites him over more often and El cooks. She cooks and it’s almost _Like Water for Hot Chocolate_ – her tears falling into the food and making the rest of them cry. He never wanted her to know. Never wanted to hurt her. She’s been hurt enough.

Peter watches him with anguished, self-blaming eyes. Neal tells him that he didn’t want him to know. Peter says that he wanted to know. Wanted to be there. It makes Neal pause and for the first time since he got the news, his eyes start stinging. First, only two tears come trickling slowly, artistically down his cheeks. They’re the start of a torrent. Tears are torn from him. It’s not attractive crying – it’s nose turning red, snot running, face scrunched up in misery crying. It feels like he’s being torn apart.

Peter embraces him and he clutches at the shirt. Feels El’s hands on his back. Voices the truth for the first time since the diagnosis, ‘Dying, Peter, I’m dying.’

Every breath he has ever taken, every step he has taken, every decision, has been leading up towards his death. And death has never been as far away as he imagined it. It’s close now, darting around in the outskirts of his mind. In the end, there’s not nearly enough time. There never is for those who live with the knowledge that their body is dying around them. He’s not seen everything he wanted to see. He’s not done everything he wanted to do. He’s not said everything he wanted to say.

In the end there’s a hospital room. There’s fluid in his lungs and congestion. There are people there to hold his hand and make it a little easier. It’s not enough. He hates the pain in their eyes. Hates that Lauren has flown in and the hug she gave him. She never liked him much. But now there are tears of regret in her eyes.

  


He spends his last conscious days drawing. Drawing the people in his life. Trying to make a mark in time the only way he can, with his hand, with his talented artist’s hands that tremble and make the process of drawing arduous.

He draws them as he sees them, because the world needs to see them the way he does. In a way his saviours, in a way his destroyers, but he loves them.

  


In the end, he isn’t alone.

  


  



End file.
